The Flow (after the ebb)

A lot of things in nature and life in general are cyclical. I am of the opinion that content and expression of personal thought is on the upswing.

Maybe it’s just me

I’m changing jobs (more on that later) after being at my current employer (Wine Library) for over 7 years. Naturally, with a huge life change coming, I’d be more sensitive to noticing change. I think this is more than that, but even if it isn’t, I think the change I’m describing is coming.

First, the Ebb

Over the past year or two, I’ve noticed a decline in thoughtful blogging and expression on the web. I’m hardly unique in this observation, a lot of it has been blamed on twitter, facebook and our always-connected existence. Now that it’s easier than ever to put anything out there, it’s harder to put something out, or so the thinking goes. I’m going to take a different approach. I think We (big capital we!) were molting.

The Flow

I didn’t realize what I was missing until it came back, as sad as that is. Going through my feeds this morning, I saw some very (VERY) thoughtful and thought-provoking posts from people I respect immensely. What I hadn’t realized was how long it’s been since that’s happened. I’d see a great post here and there, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen multiple posts that really got the juices going in such a short period (and it’s not even 10am yet).

The Decline?

Does this mean that twitter is doomed? That the droves are going to abandon Facebook? I doubt it! I do think that we’ve binged on the low-threshold creation, however, I also think that those services (and others) have changed us in a profound way and will be a part of our lives (or their successors) for a very, very long time. I know I’d be sad if I didn’t get the minutia of my friend’s lives. As terrible as the term is, I’ve gotten used to the “ambient intimacy”! The bottom line is that I don’t think it’s a zero-sum game. We can have it both ways, and I think we’re heading there.

The Opportunity

I built my first internet company before and then during the dot com boom. It was far easier to do great work before everything heated up, far easier to stand out and far easier to make a difference. This is your moment, but I’m afraid it won’t be easy.

It’s hard to tell when Seth is being challenging or honest, but taken at face value, I have to disagree with him. I think it’s easier than ever to make a disruptive service than ever before. Now that there are HUGE amounts of people online, getting them to use a DIFFERENT service is orders of magnititudes easier than getting them to use ANY service (for the first time). Thanks Facebook and Twitter!

A friend of mine is working on a super-secret blogging-type disruptive technology. I thought he was nuts (but didn’t tell him), I thought in the age of micro-posting and life-streaming, people would care less and less about a homebase that was their own. I’m still wary about it, but I do think that we’re
breaking out of our cocoons, and opportunity is coming!

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One thought on “The Flow (after the ebb)”

I don’t think that the actual number of thoughtful blogs has reduced over the past few years, just the number of people posting nothing has increased so much that it appears to drown out the folks who are writing real stuff.

I also think that it’s harder and easier at the same time to get noticed for writing a well thought out article. Easier because the amount of people out there reading it is must higher. Harder because people don’t want to spend the time reading / appreciating it when they can get most updates from you in 140 characters or less :)

face it, we’re consum(er?)ists. the more updates blogs we can consume in a short amount of time, the more elegantly sufficed we feel.

its a mirror… get it? Erik Kastner’s blog.

Who? What?

Hi, I'm Erik. I go by "kastner" on most networks and services.

I've been really fortunate to work on some awesome stuff over the years. From my 9 years working with Gary Vaynerchuk (both personally and with Wine Library), to Spell with flickr, Color Wars and Hide an Image with CSS, Working at Etsy for 3 years and now helping grow Kickstarter!